October 2
Creative Space – After (Part 8)
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Last Sunday, I set myself a challenge…work on my creative space for 1 hour every day for a week.  When I made this room my “creative space,” I gathered all my crafting and writing things into the room. I made good progress getting things organized, but there were odd bits and bobs that I never found a home for, and then I added some new treasures to the piles.  Last week, I found myself looking at a mess with no idea where to begin and very little motivation to “dig in.” So, I cleared the room of all the items that had no home and decided to set a timer and work on the piles for 1 hour a day to see if that would help me out. Cleaning and organizing to a timer is a technique that is encouraged in a lot of organizing books. I’d never tried it, but I decided to see if it would help me with this particular problem. Here’s what I found:
1. My goal was to work for 1 hour a day.  I broke that in to two 30 minute sessions. I did this for two reasons: (1) I knew I would spent the first few organizing sessions not really knowing what to do. I figured spending 30 minutes not knowing what to do would be better than spending an hour not knowing what to do, (2) I knew that even if I didn’t want to do it, I could convince myself to “muscle through” just 30 minutes.
2. I made myself stop when the timer went off. Then, I spent a few minutes (only a few minutes) putting away any remaining items. Most sessions, I wanted to keep working after the timer went off.  By stopping, I didn’t burn myself out and my desire to keep working seemed to transfer to my enthusiasm to start the next session.
3. During my first few sessions, I spent a lot of time feeling confused and overwhelmed, and I didn’t get a tremendous amount of work done. I didn’t let that bother me because I found that in between sessions, my mind kept working to find solutions and to plan what was coming next. With every session, I found myself becoming more and more productive.
4. If I found items needed a container and I didn’t have an empty one, I found a temporary solution like a box or a bag. Whatever you do, don’t start piles. I also kept a pad of paper in the room to write down things I need to buy and any ideas I thought of.
5. I tried hard not to become obsessed with finding the “right and proper” spot for everything. I found the best place for the moment, knowing that I could rearrange things when a better solution became apparent.
The verdict: I’m a new devotee to using a timer to tackle cleaning and organizing projects. If you’re like me and easily overwhelmed by messes, the timer method is a real help in making a project do-able and giving you a sense of accomplishment. The timer is my new best friend.
I love this idea! And could you please come and tell my husband that rule about NOT starting piles?! Oh, that drives me past the brink of insanity!
I’ve been replaced by a “timer”??? ;-O lol, sounds like a great idea!
No one and nothing could ever replace you. You’re the best “whip cracker” I know.
I think I will buy myself a timer…very good advice. I have not finished moving my things from old apt to new apt. Almost a year now……..
I can certainly relate to that! Sometimes I’ll look at something around the house that’s out of place and try to remember when I put it there. The answer usually isn’t pretty and often involves many months. Sad thing is, it doesn’t bother me at all. Maybe that’s a good thing.